GCSE Results Day23rd August 2018

Students impress with strong results in specialist subjects...

On 23rd August, great scenes of jubilation took place at Elstree UTC when students, accompanied by their friends and families, received their GCSE results.

In a year when students are collecting a mixture of 9-1 and A*-U grades, Elstree UTC has seen a strong performance once again in our specialist subjects, as well as an improvement in our Progress 8 score. The Progress 8, Government defined ‘Headline measure’, judges the progress students make from their ‘starting points’ (Year 6 results).

67% of students achieved grade 4-9 in English and/or Literature and 55% achieve a 4 or above in Maths. 56% achieved a 4-9 in Science. We are so pleased for our young people who worked really hard to achieve their target grades and we congratulate them on their success.

As a UTC offering specialist courses in Media and Film Production Technology and Performance Arts, we are thrilled to report that we have yet again seen some remarkable results in our specialist, technical subjects, which include: 81% A*-C in Media Studies; 81% 4-9 grade in Photography; 67% 4-9 grade in Art and Design. 56% of Dance students achieved Distinction* to Distinction and 53% of students studying Theatrical and Media Makeup achieved a Distinction*.

GCSEs have always been high pressure and stressful exams and this was even more true this year with new, harder, reformed qualifications. I am really proud of our young people for committing so impressively to their studies and I congratulate them most sincerely for the impressive progress they have made. I would employ so many of them as they have developed into proactive, confident and professional young people and I am delighted to keep working with them as they become post 16 students in our sixth form.

— Principal, Chris Mitchell

We are extremely proud of the efforts and resilience of all our students, who sat new, reformed GCSE’s as the first cohorts, and we are confident that their grades, alongside the incredible industry experience they have gained, whilst being at Elstree, will prepare and propel them forward into exciting next steps including with us as part of our specialist sixth form.

Special congratulations must be made of the following Year 11 students for their outstanding academic results:

Jasmine Nuttall (9,7,7, 6, 6,6,6,Merit);

Daniel Angell (8,8, 7,5, 5,5, B,Merit);

Melissa Faldes (8,7,6, 5, 5,4,4, Dist*, Dist*);

Chloe Martin (7,7,7,6,6,6,6, A, C, Dist);

Wren Turner (8,7,7,6,5,5,4,4,4, Dist);

Jamie McNulty (A,7,7,7,6,6,5,4, Merit).

We are also delighted to be able to highlight a special mention to Tijuana Uludag White who smashed her targets to achieve beyond expectation across the board.

Relaying back to the success in Progress 8, A recent article in the TES by Martin George, recognised that the Department for Education now acknowledges that the Progress 8 measure is not the most useful measure to judge success for UTCs. This is because UTCs educate 14 to 16 year olds and can not be judged on their schooling before they arrived at the college.

It is suggested that UTC’s should now be judged by the quality of training and employment destinations attained by their students rather than the overall Progress 8 scores.

Even so, Elstree UTC’s progress 8 measure has seen a remarkable increase, attesting to the fact we focus on the ‘core’ subjects, alongside our specialist subjects.

However our industry destinations and the professional opportunities available for young people remain impressive at Elstree UTC!